Common Name: Athel tamarisk

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Non-Native

Lifeform: Tree

Wetland Status: FAC

General: Shrubs to trees, perennials, to 25 m tall, much branched, young stems often pendent, slender, covered by leaves, hairy or glabrous, trunk bark rough.

Leaves: Alternate, small, awl- or scale-like, sessile, united completely around the stem, giving the stem a jointed appearance, to 2 mm long, tips mucronate, with salt-excreting glands and usually encrusted with excreted salt.

Flowers: White, pink, or red, with 5 free petals, these 2-2.5 mm long, oblong to elliptic, sepals 5, united at the base, 1-1.5 mm long, round with obtuse tips and entire margins, stamens 5, alternate the nectary disk lobes, inflorescences of racemes 2-6 cm long, borne on current or previous year's twigs, bracts scale-like and clasping, triangular, with acuminate tips.

Fruits: Lanceolate, loculicidal, valved capsules. Seeds many, hairs in a tuft at tips, hairs longer than the seeds.

Ecology: Found in washes and on roadsides, to 650 ft (198 m); flowering May-November.

Distribution: Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Utah

Notes: This species is considered uncommon in California, and is noted by Jepson to hybirdize with Tamarix ramosissima and T. chinensis.

Ethnobotany: Wood used in winter for fuel.

Etymology: Tamarix comes from the Latin name for this plant derived from the Tamaris River in Spain, and aphylla means leafless.

Synonyms: Tamarix articulata

Editor: LCrumbacher2012